Why a darkroom?

[Ted]

why do photographers use darkrooms??

[jason schlachet]

for me, it's a hobby. i shoot mostly medium format and 4x5. nothing makes me feel so excited as when i turn the lights on after doing a 16x20 print from 4x5. i also like knowing that my prints' esthetics are because of my own doing: no point-and-click, no downloaded filters, all knowledge and darkroom craft. i have a high tech career -- a low tech hobby makes me feel completely in balance. it's such a good escape. and knowing each of my prints is 100% hand-crafted makes me feel good.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Because it doesn't work well with the lights on.

Sorry, couldn't help it.

[Merg Ross]

For the most part, to provide a light free environment as the name implies, and more convenient than a tent. The addition of running water makes it even better,

[Donald Hutton]

Personally, I find that the "film fridge" is a good enough reason alone to have a darkroom (it goes without saying that it also contains some refreshing beverages).

[Frank Bagbey]

Jason, please do not call the craft of fine art black and white printing a low tech hobby. As someone who has wanted to pull his hair out trying to turn out that better print, there is nothing low tech about it. Those times, fortunately, are offset by the times a fine art black and white print is almost magical.

Although I fear for the digitial "interference" into black and white print making, I realize today's kids will have camera phones better than today's digitial cameras, they will be bored with picture taking after a bit, let alone any thought of darkroom work, the average person will be bored to death with umpteen photoshoped saves of mediocre pictures, the mere mention of digitial in a courtroom will bring cause for dismissal, everyone will be sick to death of people who shoot 700 pictures, delete 695 and print none, and everyone even down to the scrapbookers will be worn out with the latest, greatest "archival" inks and papers that won't even make it a year on the refrigerator door. Maybe then fine art black and white print makers can pick up the pieces and revive what is left of photography as an art form.

[Michael Kadillak]

Two reasons. First, I already spend enough hours in front of a computer in a home office. I need an intellectual and physical diversion. Secondly, the speed at which equipment becomes antiquated and the value goes from expensive to worthless in no time at all is mind boggling. How people can complain about not having anough capital for LF and then do digital is beyond me. My chemicals, trays and film and paper inventory wish them all the best.

Cheers!

[jason schlachet]

i use "low tech" sort of tongue-in-cheek. i have some gadgets. i have an expensive spot meter. i have a color head on my enlarger. i even have a calumet print washer. to me, "low tech" refers to composing my image on a ground/etched glass. it means focusing manually. measuring and mixing the chemicals to do the development. moving my prints between trays and feeling the difference in touch between baths. it is all so basic and low tech for me. i love it.

cheers,

jason

[Gem Singer]

Is this one of those "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes?? O.K. Ted, what's the punch line?
(These types of questions are hard to take early in the morning. I need a cup of coffee).

[Bill_1856]

It's "low-tech" because someone else is doing all the HighTech stuff for you. If you had to grind your silver and combine it with a halide then boil down your cattle horns to make gelatin, and coat it onto a plate glass which you made from sand, then develop it in chemicals which you had to make from dirt and rocks...then it would be high tech. "Low Tech" it is, you lazy slob. Oh yeah, I forgot the cutting down trees and pounding the pulp to make paper to print on. Jeez, we never had it so good.

[Jim Rhoades]

Why do people who make photocopies call them names other than what they are? I make selenium toned silver, platinum and or palladium prints in my darkroom. All those names as well as carbon, sepia etc. are used by the photocopiers to make their work seem more valuable. If you make computerized photocopies be proud of it. Call it what they are. If your are embarresed because you make photocopies that's your problem.

Oh, and stop defining "Archival" downward. If that new ink you use now has a display life of 13 months it's not "archival".

[Scott Davis]

Bill said,

It's "low-tech" because someone else is doing all the HighTech stuff for you. If you had to grind your silver and combine it with a halide then boil down your cattle horns to make gelatin, and coat it onto a plate glass which you made from sand, then develop it in chemicals which you had to make from dirt and rocks...then it would be high tech. "Low Tech" it is, you lazy slob. Oh yeah, I forgot the cutting down trees and pounding the pulp to make paper to print on. Jeez, we never had it so good.

Bill, actually, what that would make you is Martha Stewart, not low-tech.

The reason some of us still use darkrooms is to practice and participate in a manual, labor-intensive handcraft. The same reason why my father, a board-certified physician, went out and took a masonry class, and enjoys home-improvement projects. There is something incredibly relaxing and comforting in knowing that you were entirely responsible for the creation of an image, from initial visualization through exposure, development, printing, matting and framing. I really enjoy all those hours spent doing that, because each time I do it, I learn better how to do the next one, and it is something I can't run out of enthusiasm for. Unlike playing a video game, or using a Photoshop filter.

[Alan Davenport]

why do photographers use darkrooms??

Film is just fussy that way.

[David Vickery]

"why do photographers use darkrooms??"

In what other type of "room" could we do what we do, Ted????

Or perhaps Ted is trying to elevate the status of those of us who still use darkrooms to that of Craftsmen or Craftswomen (or if you are really good "Artist"). And, is implying that the digital crap is good enough to handle all of the traditional, commercially oriented photography work. Which means that his question is really a criticism of those of us who still call ourselves photographers, which tends to separate "us" from the rest of the Art world.

[Mark Sawyer]

I always wanted to write a book on photo techniques just because I have the perfect title for it... "The Illuminated Darkroom."

[Don Wallace]

It's not so much as question of keeping the light out as keeping the dark in.

Ask a silly question ...

[Pat Kearns]

Accounting pays the bills and enables me to pursue my hobby of photography. Sitting in front of a computer 10 hours a day number crunching can be stressful to say the least. The last thing I want to do is go home and sit in front of a computer to print a photograph. Turning on the cd player and printing in the darkroom certainly destresses and relaxes me. To paraphrase the Robert Duval quote from the movie Apocalypse Now, " There is nothing better than the smell of fixer at night". There is only one other thing that is more relaxing than printing in a darkroom but I will keep my thread rated " G ". Cheers, may the light, or in this case, the dark be with you.

[John Kasaian]

Ted,

Because its really really really cool.

Besides being quiet(I've noticed how my 'puter sounds a lot like the 1950's x-ray machine they used at the hospital in Yosemite Valley) unless I want some music, it allows me to see my prints appear magically in a tray under a safe light. I can dodge and burn ghostly images under an enlarger...man, its fun!!! No one in my family understands what the heck I'm doing and besides they're all asleep(I work late at night since my darkroom is light leaky) call it my Inner Sanctum, I guess. I've been using a poor man's Jobo(Unicolor) for developing sheet film so the only tedious part of dark room work for me(souping panchro in total darkness) is a non issue. I still like the idea of souping ortho(arista APHS) under a red light though! Of course, I enjoy tying my own flies, growing my own tomatos, shoeing my own mules, reading great books rather than books about parts of great books, and shifting my own transmission too. Maybe I'm just "wired" that way.

Cheers!

[Gene Crumpler]

Well, I use my darkroom because I spent a lot of money building my retirement home and I gave the contractor about $6k extra to build a darkroom to my specs. I've never had a real full time darkroom before and I enjoy using it. It's an investment, so I use it.

If I did not have complete and exclusive use of a decent darkroom, I'd probably still be

trying to figure out how I could get ink jet prints that looked like well done B&W prints!

Gene

[Andrew O'Neill]

...I like the smells.

[Michael Chmilar]

High-tech: resembling or making use of highly advanced technology or devices.



There is little or nothing in the darkroom that is "highly advanced technology". Most of the techniques and technology in the darkroom has been available for decades, and advances are more like refinements than great leaps. The last major darkroom technology advance is probably multi-grade paper, and that was thirty years ago.



Making great prints in the darkroom may be high-skill, but certainly not high-tech.

[oneonesip2]

Jason, please do not call the craft of fine art black and white printing a low tech hobby. As someone who has wanted to pull his hair out trying to turn out that better print, there is nothing low tech about it. Those times, fortunately, are offset by the times a fine art black and white print is almost magical.

Although I fear for the digitial "interference" into black and white print making, I realize today's kids will have camera phones better than today's digitial cameras, they will be bored with picture taking manfaat it (http://manfaat.co.id/manfaat-it) after a bit, let alone any thought of darkroom work, the average person will be bored to death with umpteen photoshoped saves of mediocre pictures, the mere mention of digitial in a courtroom will bring cause for dismissal, everyone will be sick to death of people who shoot 700 pictures, delete 695 and print none, and everyone even down to the scrapbookers will be worn out with the latest, greatest "archival" inks and papers that won't even make it a year on the refrigerator door. Maybe then fine art black and white print makers can pick up the pieces and revive what is left of photography as an art form.

great but black is one of the ways we united

[Mark MacKenzie]

It seems a trolling question.

[Leigh]

It's where I store my dark.

Otherwise, if I left it out in the light, it would fade.

- Leigh

[Kirk Gittings]

hmmmm resurrecting one of the oddest 8 year old threads possible on the forum full of trolls and spams?

[Leigh]

resurrecting one of the oddest 8 year old threads possible on the forum full of trolls and spams?
Much more efficient than starting a new thread and hoping the spammers and trollers will cooperate. :D

- Leigh

[Kirk Gittings]

:)....

[gth]

Kirk,

Well, it got the old buzzards awake on a Sunday morning!

And for whatever reason I clicked in to your Blog. Man, getting the lighting right in those big buildings.... beautiful shots... BTW.... the click-in shot of the Aperture Centre gives a server error.

And finally the tonalities of the old desert dry walls...... if that is not a jump in culture and architecture.... gorgeous

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk,

Well, it got the old buzzards awake on a Sunday morning!

And for whatever reason I clicked in to your Blog. Man, getting the lighting right in those big buildings.... beautiful shots... BTW.... the click-in shot of the Aperture Centre gives a server error.

And finally the tonalities of the old desert dry walls...... if that is not a jump in culture and architecture.... gorgeous

Thanks for the kind words and I will check out that link.

[ic-racer]

why do photographers use darkrooms??

To keep the film and paper from getting exposed to light?